5 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw After WrestleMania (April 4)

4. Pin The Champ To Get A Title Shot

Austin Theory
WWE.com

All signs point to Austin Theory, the guy who got shown up by 76-year-old Vince McMahon Sunday night at WrestleMania 38, getting the next shot at the United States Championship.

Theory got the pinfall win in a six-man tag match by pinning US champ Finn Balor on Raw, as Balor goes from not being on the Mania card and losing the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal on Friday to having his presumed next opponent beat him. That’s a hell of a run as champ.

The match itself was fine, but having just saw a match between the Raw and SmackDown tag team champions last week, the variable Monday was Finn and Austin, so having Theory pin Balor is what we’re measuring here.

And sorry, but WWE’s trope of pinning the champ to get a title shot is going to get a down when it’s stupid, which is about 85% of the time. And when your champ isn’t well-protected, that’s an easy decision.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.